The System.Drawinging.Pen and System.Drawing.Font classes represent pen and font objects in GDI+.
The Pen Class
A pen draws a line of specified width and style. You always use Pen constructor to create a pen. The constructor initializes a new instance of the Pen class. You can initialize it with a color or brush.
Initializes a new instance of the Pen class with the specified color. The Color is the only one parameter passed in constructor as an argument.
public
Pen(Color); Initializes a new instance of the Pen class with the specified Brush. The Brush is the only one parameter passed in constructor as an argument.
public
Pen(Brush); Initializes a new instance of the Pen class with the specified Brush and width.
public
Pen(Brush, float); Initializes a new instance of the Pen class with the specified Color and Width.
public
Pen(Color, float); Here is one example:
Pen pn = new Pen( Color.Blue );
or
Pen pn = new Pen( Color.Blue, 100 );
Some of its most commonly used properties are Alignment, Brush, Color, and Width, which are self-explanatory. The Font Class
The Font class defines a particular format for text such as font type, size, and style attributes. You use font constructor to create a font.
Initializes a new instance of the Font class with the specified attributes.
public
Font(string, float); Initializes a new instance of the Font class from the specified existing Font and FontStyle.
public
Font(Font, FontStyle); Where FontStyle is an enumeration, which include values Bold, Italic, Regular, StrikeOut, and Underline, which are self-explanatory. Here is one example:
Graphics g ;
Font font = new Font("Times New Roman", 26);
Some of its most commonly used properties are:
| Bold | Gets a value indicating whether this Font is bold. |
| FontFamily | Gets the FontFamily of this Font. |
| Height | Gets the height of this Font. |
| Italic | Gets a value indicating whether this Font is Italic. |
| Name | Gets the face name of this Font. |
| Size | Gets the size of this Font. |
| SizeInPoints | Gets the size, in points, of this Font. |
| Strikeout | Gets a value indicating whether this Font is strikeout (has a line through it). |
| Style | Gets style information for this Font. |
| Underline | Gets a value indicating whether this Font is underlined. |
| Unit | Gets the unit of measure for this Font. |
Working with Fonts and FontFamily
Although we've already discussed Fonts in the previous section of this chapter but there is more to be discussed about fonts.
The System.Drawing.Font class represents a font type. For example,
Font greenSolid = new Font("Verdana", 14);
Creates a font type verdana with size 14. You can also use a FontStyle as an argument when constructing a font. The below line creates a font of Tahoma with different styles. Font redStyle = new Font("Tahoma", 20, FontStyle.Bold|FontStyle.Italic|FontStyle.Underline);
g.DrawString("Text on the Screen", greenSolid, new SolidBrush(Color.Green), 10,10);
g.DrawString("Red Text", redStyle, new HatchBrush(HatchStyle.DiagonalCross, Color.Chocolate, Color.Red), 50,40);
The FontStyle Enumeration defines these styles. Table 11-6. FontStyle Enumeration
| Member | Description |
| Bold | Bold Text. |
| Italic | Italic Text |
| Regular | Regular Text. |
| StrikeOut | Text with a line in middle. |
| Underline | Underline Text. |
FontFamily is another class we'd like to discuss before moving to the next topic. System.Drawing.FontFamily class represents a font family, which is used to work with similar kind of fonts with different style variations. For example, Tahoma font can have different styles and size.
FontFamily tahomaFmly = new FontFamily("Tahoma");
Here tahomaFmly represents the Tahoma font family. In the below sample example, green28 and red14Italic uses same font family to create a Tahoma font with different styles.
FontFamily fontFmly = new FontFamily("Tahoma");
Font green28 = new Font(fontFmly, 28);
Font red14Italic = new Font(fontFmly, 14, FontStyle.Italic);
g.DrawString("Text on the Screen", green28, new SolidBrush(Color.Green), 10,10);
g.DrawString("Text on the Screen", red14Italic, new SolidBrush(Color.Red), 10,10);
FontFamily class provides members to get information about a family of fonts. These members include GetName, GetLineSpacing, GetEmHeight, IsStyleAvailable and so on. All of them are self-explanatory.
Working with Pens
We've seen earlier in this chapter that the Graphics class's draw members such as DrawLine, DrawRectangle, DrawArc and so on use pens to draw objects. A pen draws a line with specified width and style. The System.Drawing.Pen and System.Drawing.Pens classes represent pens in GDI+. Some of the System.Drawing.Pen class properties are defined in the following table.
| Public Instance Properties |
| Brush | Attached brush with a pen. |
| Color | Color of a pen. |
| Dash Style | Dashed line style. |
| DashCap | Style at the beginning and at the end of dashed lines. |
| DashedOffset | Distance from the start of a line before a dashed pattern. |
CustomStartCap,
CustomEndCap | Custom cap style at the beginning and end of the line. |
| DashPattern | Dash pattern. |
| DashStyle | Dashed line style. |
| StartCap, EndCap | Starts and ends the cap style. |
| PenTyle | Style of lines of a pen. |
| Transform | Geometric transformation of a pen. |
| Width | Width of a pen |
The System.Drawing.Pens class represents pens of all the colors. The System.Drawing.Pens class is non inheritable. For example,
Pen redPn = new Pen(Color.Red, 14);
Pen redPen = Pens.Red;
g.DrawLine(redPen, 10, 40, 50, 60);
You can set the other properties: pnGreen.Width = 4;
pnGreen.DashStyle = DashStyle.DashDot;
The DashStyle members and their description are given below -
| Member | Description |
| Custom | custom dash style. |
| Dash | A line consisting of dashes. |
| DashDot | A line of a repeating pattern of dash-dot. |
| DashDotDot | A line of a repeating pattern of dash-dot-dot. |
| Dot | A line consisting of dots. |
| Solid | A solid line. |